Conference Presentations

An Interview with Jim McCarthy: ADC-BSW 2013 Interview Series
Video

Committed to covering the latest trends and approaches for anyone investigating or implementing agile development practices, processes, technologies, and leadership principles, Agile Development & Better Software Conference West offers their 2013 interview series. 

Jim McCarthy, McCarthy Technologies Inc.
Build Your Own Performance Test Lab in the Cloud
Slideshow

Many cloud-based performance and load testing tools claim to offer “cost-effective, flexible, pay-as-you-go pricing.” However, the reality is often neither cost-effective nor flexible. With many vendors, you will be charged whether or not you use the time (not cost effective), and...

Leslie Segal, Testware Associates Inc.
Leveraging Core Values for Healthier, More Productive Teams
Slideshow

Although all teams require a healthy level of interaction, high-performing teams' interactions are all based on trust, respect, and shared goals. Such teams find ways to overcome the fear of conflict, and quickly identify and resolve issues that are getting in the way. Scott Ross shares how, when the Omnyx software R&D department determined their culture was hindering performance, they crafted a core values statement that has served them well for the past three years. Scott describes the ways they proactively and intentionally use their value statement to drive the culture they seek and discusses the results they have achieved. Take back the list of resources that Scott uses daily to help himself and others see how their actions add to and take away from their core values.

Scott Ross, Omnyx
Database Load Testing and Performance Analysis: New Approaches for Fast Results

Ever wonder exactly how a database becomes the bottleneck for an entire application? Ever think about replaying real production load to see if your application can stand the pressure? Ron Warshawsky presents novel methods for performing load testing at the database level to quickly identify database performance problems. Ron shares the best ways to load test the database side of applications and to analyze the performance of databases. To identify the root causes of database performance bottlenecks, Ron demonstrates how you can correlate load test data with database performance analysis results. Although Oracle is used as a case study database, the same methods are applicable to other databases including DB2, SQL Server, MySQL and PostgreSQL.

Ron Warshawsky, Enteros, Inc.
Performance Testing in the Agile World

Like agile development, performance testing is an iterative process in which new problems and risks are identified, and appropriate steps are taken to fix issues or mitigate risks. Experience tells us that in an agile environment, performance testing must be built into the development process, owned by the entire team, and coordinated by the performance analyst. Agile programs spanning multiple scrums running in parallel and sharing a common infrastructure present a unique set of problems that can challenge any performance analyst. Sai Subramanian shares his experience in the evolution of performance testing within agile teams. Sai discusses the strengths and challenges posed by the different levels of collaboration between the performance analysts and other project stakeholders.

Sai Subramanian, Cognizant Technology Solutions
Agile Development Conference & Better Software Conference West 2012: Patterns of "Big" Scrum

Software development organizations adopting Scrum have struggled to apply it to big projects with multiple teams. Dan Rawsthorne is frequently asked, “What does ‘big’ Scrum look like?” Because no two organizations are alike, this simple question does not have a simple answer. However, Dan has discovered patterns that are common in organizations that successfully implement “big” scrum. The first pattern he explores-Product Owner Team-allows the organization to handle agility up and down the hierarchy. Dan also discusses the Cross-cutting Teams pattern that handles issues-architecture, usability, integration, performance, and evaluation-that the formal hierarchy can’t resolve. Finally, Dan discusses the BuddyUp pattern to describe the best way to work with subject matter experts from dispersed parts of the organization.

Dan Rawsthorne, Consultant
Is Open Source Too Open? Tips for Implementing a Governance Program

By next year, 90 percent of large enterprises will include open-source software as business critical elements of their IT portfolios. However, most software development organizations have limited capability to govern the process of selecting, managing, and distributing open-source components-leaving them exposed to unforeseen technical and compliance risks. Larry Roshfeld examines how open-source components-and their dependencies-may expose your company to unforeseen and unnecessary vulnerabilities. He outlines the significant threats to software quality, stability, performance, security, and intellectual property that have occurred using such components. Then, Larry shares an action plan for balancing the risk/reward trade-offs of open-source software in the enterprise. Find out how to ensure that your organization uses only the highest quality open-source components and avoids the common vulnerabilities.

Larry Roshfeld, Sonatype
ClouT 3i Infotech's Testing Platform Enterprise
Video

Infotech is a global Information Technology company committed to Empowering Business Transformation. Our Independent Testing and Compliance Business [ITCB] became the world's first true testing platform in 2011 -- ClouT™

John Caymans, Hitachi Data Systems
Performance Testing Earlier in the Software Development Lifecycle

Historically, performance testing has been relegated to simply adding a few weeks to the back end of a project to run a series of prescripted tests. The problem with this approach is that issues that performance test engineers uncover late in the project are often too costly to remediate, placing the entire effort at risk. Agile development methodologies can further complicate the issue due to their ever-changing landscape and often a lack of focus on performance testing. Eric Gee shares innovative ideas and techniques on how testers can engage as meaningful partners earlier in the software development lifecycle. Eric explores the benefits of partnering with software engineers in unit testing under load, testing at the component level, and other novel approaches you can use for early performance testing. If you are concerned about finding performance problems late in development, this session is for you.

Eric Gee, Raymond James & Associates
Simple and Informative Performance Tests You Can Do Now

When most people think of performance testing, they think about the hard-or the very, very hard-parts, those expensive and complicated tools that simulate the activity of thousands of end-users while collecting tens or hundreds of thousands of measurements. Scott Barber tells those looking to start performance testing to start with easy and mid-level tests. While it is true that accurately simulating high-activity production usage is difficult and expensive, you can detect and diagnose many performance issues with the tools and knowledge you have at your disposal right now. In fact, much of the performance information needed by stakeholders to make good decisions and by developers to dramatically improve performance is easily obtained by performance-testing novices.

Scott Barber, PerfTestPlus, Inc.

Pages

AgileConnection is a TechWell community.

Through conferences, training, consulting, and online resources, TechWell helps you develop and deliver great software every day.